Contents

Desktop

The vast majority of Linux users may get the operating system by downloading and installing it themselves, but there’s no denying that there are distinct advantages to buying hardware with Linux preloaded instead.

Server

Since little more than half a year, I am in the process of installing a new virtualization Platform. One of the hardest decisions to make was if we should use Xen or go with KVM. We already have Xen in production and I know that it works well. From KVM we expect, that it will be growing faster then Xen and be the right thing on the long run.

Kernel Space

Android drivers are returning to the Linux kernel. Kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman has retrieved the Android drivers removed from the staging area of Linux 2.6.33 in the spring of 2010 and put them back into his development branch for version 3.3 of the Linux kernel.

After yesterday’s article about the Grinch that stole the Radeon Gallium3D performance, here’s three offending commits since Mesa 7.10 that are causing the open-source Radeon Gallium3D driver to run slower than it should.

Applications

The Linux New Media Awards are back! Organized by the publisher of Linux Magazine and Linux Pro Magazine, these awards recognize projects, organisations, people, and companies for their outstanding contributions to the Linux/FLOSS community.

Games

A few months ago I was asked by Unknown Horizons (UH) upstream if I could maintain UH for Fedora, which I accepted. At a first approach I’ve decided to use OBS (Open Build Service, on openSUSE infra-structure) to provide a Fedora repository for UH, which in theory would make it easier because that’s where I maintain the openSUSE packages.

Desktop Environments

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

Today KDE released the first release candidate for its Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the KDE team’s focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing. Compared to Beta2, RC1 contains hundreds of fixes. Please give this release another good round of testing to help us release a rock-solid 4.8 in January.

I was looking back on this year and thinking about what the real successes have been. There have been many great things, new technology and work behind the scenes to make it all happen.

But perhaps the greatest thing has been the return of the Commit Digest, so I’ll name the Commit Digest team my personal heroes of KDE for 2011. Every week, they let us know what’s going on in this great community of ours. It’s a hell of a lot of work and they deserve a lot of credit.

GNOME Desktop

Linux Mint has not adopted the new interface instead going their own route with the MATE fork and the MGSE (Mint GNOME Shell Extensions). Apparently that’s not enough and now Mint Founder Clement Lefebvre has launched a new effort to create a new desktop called Cinnamon.

Many Linux users who have been GNOME fans for years find themselves in a sudden quandary. GNOME 3.0 has completely abandoned the desktop experience we’ve come to love during the years. That’s not to say change is bad, it’s just that many folks (even Linus Torvalds) don’t really want to change.

When I discovered Linux two years ago, I started looking for what I called “The Perfect Rescue Distro”, a somewhat mythical distribution that fitted into a CD, could mount Windows partitions, play all sorts of video/audio formats, include a productivity suite, decent image-manipulating tools, and burn backups…all in Live mode. Hence, over these two years, I have tested lots of distributions and some of them came really close to the ideal. I felt as if the Holy Grail was between an arm’s reach.

Semplice Linux is a very young project that has only recently made its debut on Distrowatch with Release Candidate 1 for their upcoming 2.0 code-named ‘Emily’ getting listed. This means there must be a support structure in place, a website, bug tracker, documentation and user forum.

The distribution originates from Italy and is based on Debian unstable, using only the Openbox window manager, a handful of applications and a blank background. It will not surprise you then that semplice means simple.

Gentoo Family

Well it’s been a couple of months now since the start of Experiment 2.0 and I’ve had plenty of time to learn about Gentoo, see its strengths and… sit waiting through its weaknesses. I don’t think Gentoo is as bad as everyone makes it out to be, in fact, compared to some other distributions out there, Gentoo doesn’t look bad at all.

Red Hat Family

“What happened doesn’t necessarily give confidence in companies that are wanting to go public,” said Manoj George, CEO of outsourcing firm Nair & Co. and CFO of Red Hat (RHT) during its IPO. “I’ve talked to a couple of companies who have the fundamentals to go public, (but) they are looking at 2013 as opposed to 2012.”

Fedora

I used Unetbootin to install the Live/Install CD onto a USB stick. No problems booting into live mode and then installing from the live mode. The installed edition booted just fine. With the exception of some Gnome3 applications not correctly sizing to my netbook screen, the installed applications worked. Yet, I have major issues with this edition.

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

When Canonical announced it was stopping its use of CouchDB, it also announced it would also be dropping DesktopCouch, the desktop API for CouchDB, and creating its own solution, U1DB, to fill the gap. The Canonical developers have now announced that a technical preview of U1DB is available and have given more details of its functionality. According to the announcement, U1DB is an API and data model designed to be backed by any database for storage. The API has been created to enable the storage of JSON documents in synchronised databases and to make that process simple.

Just a day after questioning whether multiple monitors are really necessary, I learned the design team at Canonical had purchased not two but six monitors to attach to a single computer. Fortunately, this seeming excess should benefit Ubuntu users — if not me personally — by improving the multi-monitor experience in Ubuntu. Here’s a look at these efforts so far, and how they fit into the larger open source picture.

The Ubuntu Tweak development team has announced the release of version 0.6.0 of its popular open source application for customising the Ubuntu Linux distribution. With Ubuntu Tweak, users can configure their installations by changing a number of desktop and system options that are not provided with the default Unity environment.

If you are an Ubuntu fan and are wondering what is the perfect gift to suprise your friends this Christmas. Then think no more!! Gift them a CD with the latest version of Ubuntu Linux as a gift. Gifting a distro inevitably requires you to get you hands dirty and if that is what is stopping you from celebrating Christmas, then check out the rest of the post.

This will be the last development update of 2011, so let’s see where we stand in terms of 12.04. We are 10 weeks into the release cycle and have still 18 weeks to go. There is definitely still a lot left to be done, but the foundations for a great release have been laid already.

In a previous article, I talked about setting up my Asus Eee computer with eee-control on Ubuntu. Today, this is no longer valid if you’re using Ubuntu 11.10 or Linux Mint 12. Now you must run different software. Not only that, now more than ever disenchanted Ubuntu users are switching to Linux Mint due to the ongoing frustrations presented with the Unity desktop. The great news for folks wanting to switch to Linux Mint is that Ubuntu packages and PPAs work great in Mint. Even better, you have additional Gnome desktop choices made available.

Linux Mint has been quite a revolutionary distribution, gaining plenty of popularity. In fact, DistroWatch statistics suggest the Linux Mint is now the second most popular distribution in the world, behind Ubuntu (upon which it’s based) and in front of Fedora.

The Raspberry Pi project, which aims to sell tiny £16 Linux-based computers to help kids learn about real computing in schools, has said it is now testing beta versions of the device.

The project published photos of its first populated beta circuit boards on Thursday, having shown off the naked boards earlier in the month. If electrical and hardware and software testing goes well, Raspberry Pi devices will go on general sale in January.

UK-based Raspberry Pi Foundation is working on a credit card size, $25 PC which will redefine computing. The tiny computer runs on Linux. It supports Debian, Fedora and Arch Linux. Initially Ubuntu, as its based on Debian, was supported but it doesn’t at the moment.

Magneti Marelli has demonstrated a Linux-based prototype of what it claims is the first open-source infotainment system. The platform was unveiled at the fifth Member Meeting of the GENIVI Alliance in San Jose, California. Other partners of the group, the medium-term aim of which is to connect cars to the Cloud, include BMW, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Intel.

It’s no longer hard to find a Christmas gift that runs Linux, thanks to the popularity of Google’s Android. The Tuxy possibilities go far beyond tablets and smartphones, however, as we highlight in a list of 27 top gift picks for 2011.

Here’s a little something to warm your festive cockles. These are populated boards from our first run of beta devices. They’re undergoing electrical testing alongside hardware and software testing at the moment, and if all goes well, the Raspberry Pi you’ll be buying in January (or by auction later this month if they all work as they should) will be exactly like one of these.

Phones

Android

The lack of women involved in open source has unfortunately long been a weakness for open source software and its many, varied communities around the globe. In fact, we found out recently just how significant the problem is, with troubling figures as reported by Valerie Aurora with the Ada Initiative that indicate significantly lower representation of women in open source (2%) compared to the overall IT industry (20%).

Rather like cloud computing and green eco-aware initiatives, open source has sometimes suffered from being added as a “label” to projects that (for the most part) remain predominantly focused on licensed sales with only an “element” of open source.

So is open source ever used a marketing badge to try and evidence some kind of community contribution effort that is actually downplayed internally?

The operating system used is becoming more irrelevant. Why? Software is slowly becoming more and more homogeneous in nature, and more cross compatible to some extent. People are also using many different devices running many different operating systems already, from phones to tablets to desktops to laptops. The age old argument that “that other operating system is too difficult” is no longer holding up as much as it used to. As we know, Microsoft still has a very high market share (anywhere from the high 80 percent to low 90 percent) in the desktop market. GNU/Linux has a high share in the server market. And on other smaller devices, it’s a large mix of Apple iOS, GNU/Linux/Android, and Windows (Windows being mainly on phones as there isn’t much of a tablet presence yet). On desktops there has been a natural shift to Wintel over the past couple of decades that has allowed Microsoft to lead the user experience with the PC as well as document formats most commonly used today, etc. But, as open source software becomes more and more prevalent, it has accustomed itself to be cross compatible with the proprietary software that already exists, and as such is a viable replacement for the proprietary software. Now that we are becoming more used to using a multitude of different devices and operating systems, moving the desktop from one operating system to another is becoming less of an issue. Users are already becoming familiar with different operating systems and are able to find their way through them easier than ever before.

Events

You have no idea how excited I am that WordCamp is coming to Milwaukee next June 2-3, 2012. A small group of us, led by Scott Offord, have been laying the groundwork for this two-day conference on all things WordPress at Bucketworks. We’re ready to accept visitors.

Although a renewed search deal between Google and Mozilla is welcome news to millions of Firefox users, Mozilla has three big ideas for 2012 and beyond that will see it competing much more aggressively with Google, Facebook, and Apple. Here’s why you should be cheering on Mozilla.

The Firefox development merry-go-round has moved on again, with Firefox 10 Beta and Firefox 11 Aurora builds being joined by two separate versions of Firefox 12: Firefox 12 Nightly and Firefox 12 UX, the latter build representing the efforts of a team focussed on delivering improvements to the Firefox user interface.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

The Apache Software Foundation has confirmed that a new build of the OpenOffice suite will be out next year, and has warned rogue developers that it – and only it – can use the trademark for the software.

According to the group, version 3.4 of the software will be out in the first quarter of next year, and will be a developer-focused release that is designed to ensure the entire code base fits with Apache’s licensing terms. There is some third-party code to remove from the OpenOffice base that is incompatible with the Apache licence, although in some cases the original coders have been happy to relicense their source under different terms in order to help the project.

A pretrial conference was held in the Oracle v. Google case on Wednesday, December 21, during which Judge Alsup heard oral arguments on some of the motions in limine. (654 [PDF; Text]) The hearing lasted about four and a half hours, but any outcome from the hearing has yet to be reported. It is known that the court heard oral arguments on three of the four motions in limine on which the parties had agreed to have oral arguments. Judge Alsup has yet to determine how much time will be required for the trial.

Claiming ASF is good for everyone including the end user is wrong. Clearly, the end user is a part of the ODF ecosystem, the largest and most important part. While ASF permits modifications to source code to be distributed it does not require source code to be distributed. That has serious implications for end users:

CMS

Danish software company Composite has released version 3.0 of its .NET-based open source content management system, Composite C1. This is the first major new version since the software was released as open source just over a year ago – version 2.1 was released in March 2011. Previously only available as a commercial product, both open source and commercial products are now available. The functionality is the same, but the commercial version comes with a product warranty, automated upgrades and end-user mail/web-based support. Composite also offers a range of support, training and other commercial services.

BSD

If you want to try out FreeBSD 9.0 this holiday but are not turned on by the actual FreeBSD 9.0 install and setup process, nor find the KDE desktop of PC-BSD 9.0 enjoyable, you may want to try out GhostBSD 2.5.

Project Releases

Openness/Sharing

Open Data

Take a look at the campaign being run by Carl Malamud and John Podesta called “Yes We Scan”. It’s an effort to encourage the US government to make plans to digitize the contents of all national libraries including the Library of Congress. In a letter addressed to President Barack Obama, John Podesta and Carl Malamud point to the economic, scientific and social benefits that would arise from a large scale digitization of America’s cultural riches currently held in the vaults of various national institutions.

Programming

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has published the new specifications for the C programming language. The standard is known unofficially as C1X and was published officially as ISO/IEC 9899:2011. It provides greater compatibility with the C++ language and adds new features to C (as indicated in the draft).

Well, hopefully this blissful piece of article has taught you some useful tips that should bring you much rejoicing. Remember, you must exercise flexibility with your ideas and never falter, even when faced with ultimate zeal. It is important to innovate, have a backup plan ready, as well as be persistent and consistent in your trolling. Do not laugh, break down or show compassion. And you must never give up. It’s all for the greater good. With your help, one day, we might live in the world where fanboyism is restricted to Star Wars versus Star Trek. Now, there’s a tricky topic.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

Oil prices emerged from their spider hole over two and half years ago. Having fallen from the towering heights of $148 a barrel in the summer of 2008, the early months of 2009 saw a return to prices in the $30s. Interestingly, during that great oil crash, the price of West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil (WTIC) spent only 20 trading sessions below $40. That is the exact price that most analysts only three years prior believed oil could never sustain as the world would pump “like crazy” should prices ever reach such “impossibly high levels.”

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

The U.S. Department of Justice has rejected South Carolina’s voter ID law, which was inspired by an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model, as discriminatory against people of color.

Fourteen states passed restrictive voting measures over the past year, many of them (including South Carolina) using the ALEC model Voter ID Act as a template. According to a report issued this month by the NAACP, 25% of African Americans (over 6.2 million African-American voters) and 16% of Latinos (over 2.96 million Latino voters) do not possess state-issued photo IDs, and as many as 5 million Americans, many of them people of color, would be ineligible to vote under the new restrictions.

Internet/Net Neutrality

Namecheap, one of the top domain registrars, has come out opposing SOPA, the dangerous bill aimed to destroy the Internet by Hollywood. Namecheap CEO, Richard Kirkendall, has released an encouraging statement “While we at Namecheap firmly believe in intellectual rights, SOPA is like detonating a nuclear bomb on the internet when only a surgical strike is necessary. This legislation has the potential to harm the way everyone uses the Internet and to undermine the system itself. At Namecheap, we believe having a free and open Internet is the only option that will continue the legacy of innovation and openess that stands for everything we all value in our modern society.”

DRM

But .AA is a proprietary file format, which contains Digital Rights Management, and is only supported on Mac and Windows. Googling “converting AA to MP3″ yielded a flood of Windows results; “Linux converting AA to MP3″ was more on point, but hardly more productive. It seems there are only three ways to convert AA to MP3, and all of them require Windows

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

Today I needed to get a mp3 file for a certain band fast, no it wasn’t Norma Jean. The file I needed was actually released royalty free via Creative Commons license so I am allowed to download and distribute for free. I found a torrent tracker that hosted the album the mp3 was in so I downloaded the .torrent file and proceeded to open. Upon doing so, I learned that my distro of linux doesn’t have a pre-installed torrent software so I headed over to download.com. I was sad to learn they didn’t have a linux version of uTorrent, but I saw something else. It was right in front of my face. The #1 site to get the tools to download torrents, rip DVD’s, and all sorts of other illegal activities is owned by C|Net. C|Net is a large geek based media company and their parent company is none other than CBS Interactive / Viacom. Viacom, along with CBS, is the top sponsor of SOPA and has had thousands of lawsuits filed on their behalf over movies and music piracy.

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The lunacy of the EPO with its patent maximalism will likely go unchecked (and uncorrected) if Battistelli gets his way and turns the EPO into another SIPO (Croatian in the human rights sense and Chinese in the quality sense)

Another long installment in a multi-part series about UPC at times of post-truth Battistelli-led EPO, which pays the media to repeat the lies and pretend that the UPC is inevitable so as to compel politicians to welcome it regardless of desirability and practicability

Implementing yet more of his terrible ideas and so-called 'reforms', Battistelli seems to be racing to the bottom of everything (patent quality, staff experience, labour rights, working conditions, access to justice etc.)

"Good for trolls" is a good way to sum up the Unitary Patent, which would give litigators plenty of business (defendants and plaintiffs, plus commissions on high claims of damages) if it ever became a reality

Microsoft's continued fascination with and participation in the effort to undermine Alice so as to make software patents, which the company uses to blackmail GNU/Linux vendors, widely acceptable and applicable again